


you said that one of us would be alone one day (and the truth of it echoed inexhaustibly)

by feather_cadence



Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Discussions of death, M/M, post DOTD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-02 10:00:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19196590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feather_cadence/pseuds/feather_cadence
Summary: Zane and Cole think about the future. Yang messes it all up.





	you said that one of us would be alone one day (and the truth of it echoed inexhaustibly)

**Author's Note:**

> i just rewatched dotd and im having some feelings abt cole yall. vaugely inspired by this comic: https://three-legged-cow.tumblr.com/post/183727287126

Zane laughed. It was a beautiful sound - like rain on a tin roof or one of those old 8-bit game soundtracks, icicles falling outside your window on a snow day. As always, Cole can’t help but smile.

“Cole.” Zane said, laughter still edging his voice. “There is still a long time yet to the end of the world, and we are in a rather dangerous profession.”

“I know.” Cole said. He was serious behind the dopey grin on his face. “Still, you know-”

Zane’s expression grew serious, and he turned to entirely face Cole. “Yes, Cole. Unfortunately, I will not live forever. Eventually, something in here,” - he taps his head - “will break irreparably. But it will be…a while, to say the least. I was built well.”

His smile is soft, and sad. He cups Cole’s face in one silver hand. Cole marvels at the feeling of cold, just barely there on his cheek. Zane always makes it seem so easy to touch him, incorporeal as he is, and Cole is amazed every time.

“Until then,” Zane continues, “I will do everything in my power to stay by your side.”

Cole grins, and thinks about that - by his side, all the way until the end of time, or as close as they can get.

“Do you think,” he says, taking Zane’s other hand in his own, despite the concentration that it takes, “that sometime, way out there, we’ll see a world at peace? A Ninjago that doesn’t need us?”

Zane smiles. “We can hope.”

Somewhere in the Bounty, an all-too-familiar alarm rang, and there was the sound of other people running. Cole and Zane looked at each other and laughed. Zane stood, and peered in the direction of the bridge. “I guess that hope will have to wait for another day.” he said, offering a hand to help Cole stand.

Cole took it, amazed again at just how good cold feels when you cannot feel much of anything at all. 

……………………….

Zane feels distinctly like he is missing something very important.

He thinks back to the last time he did maintenance on himself, trying to remember if there was a component he left out, something he reconnected wrong. He doesn’t think so - but why else does he feel so sharply an emptiness, an absence? A newfound hollowness in his chest?

“Pixal,” he asks, “are all of my internal systems running smoothly?”

“Yes,” she answers, voice confused. “Is there a reason why?”

“I feel as if I’ve forgotten something.” he says. “Something important.”

Pixal responds, but he can’t understand what she says. He can hear it, yes, but he has no idea what it is she is saying. It’s a bizarre feeling to not understand something that is broadcast directly into your head. He furrows his brow in confusion. Something here is very wrong.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.” he says.

“I believe that is intentional. I’ve been trying to communicate...this...for a while now, and it seems as if someone does not want you to hear it.” He can hear how she chooses her words carefully, so they are not blocked by the mysterious force. “Someone powerful.”

He shakes his head, as if to clear it, and keeps his hands steady on the steering wheel. Thankfully, he knows where he is going well enough that his lapse in attention hasn’t affected his route.

Pixal sighs, a sound that is more like the whirr of a computer’s interior fan than a human sigh. “I...do not want to trouble you further. It’s an important holiday, and we should be celebrating. The...issue...will hopefully become more clear in time. I will continue trying to find a way to communicate it to you without being blocked.”

Zane smiles. “I appreciate it, Pixal, but you are correct that it is a holiday. Shouldn’t you be celebrating with your father?”

“I am currently.” she says. “Remember, I have significantly more computational power than you. I can be in two places at once.”

Zane knows her well enough to recognize the sarcasm, and laughs as he brings his vehicle to a stop. He hops out and reaches under his seat to retrieve the folded red paper lantern. “I can manage on my own for a while.” he says. “Enjoy your Day of the Departed, and don’t worry about me.”

“Thank you, Zane.” she says, and then goes quiet. He smiles, and carefully unfolds his lantern, the red paper delicate in his hands

He cannot shake the feeling that he is forgetting something.

……………….

“You are alone!” Yang said, ghostly voice echoing. “They have forgotten you!”

“I’m not!” Cole said, trying to catch his breath as he was sprawled on the roof of the temple. Damn, he was tired. “I have-”

Yang laughed, high and grating. “You have no one! Look around you! Who do you see?”

“I-” he did not want to admit that at this moment, Yang was very much correct. None of his friends had noticed that he was gone. None of them had come for him. He could say all he needed was himself all he liked, but he knew well that it was all talk. He was alone, and that ached in a bone-deep way.

And he was so, so tired.

Very suddenly, he noticed his legs, out in front of him, beginning to vanish. Yang laughed again. Cole felt panic setting in. Would he vanish here, and be gone forever? Would any of them even wonder where he was, notice that he had never returned?

Forever had turned out to be a lot shorter than he thought.

“COLE!” someone, in the far distance, shouted.

Cole and Yang turned towards the sound at the same time, and Cole saw perhaps the most beautiful thing he had ever seen - the Destiny’s Bounty, fighting against the high wind to reach him. His heart seemed to start beating in his chest again.

He stood, feeling more solid by the minute. If he squinted at the Bounty, he could see the others on the deck, except for Nya - Blue, red, green, and white. As the ship got closer, he could see the silver shape on the end leaning over the railing, calling something he couldn’t hear.

He thought about the way Zane had cupped his face, gently, and the way he had said ‘by your side’, and thought that he could do just about anything in that moment.

…………………...

Cole lay back on the roof, leaned his head back to the sun, and sighed contentedly. He had forgotten just how good sunlight feels on your skin - warm and safe.

In the yard below him, Nya and Lloyd were sparring, and Lloyd was getting absolutely drenched. He was on the second roof up, and could watch the fight perfectly if he just tilted his head slightly. Every time Nya pushed him back with another spear of water, Lloyd just laughed. These quiet days were good for all of them, Cole thought. Well-deserved.

There was a rustle behind him, and Cole turned to see Zane poking his head through the window Cole had climbed on the roof from.

“May I join?” he asked, always polite.

“Totally!” Cole said. He shuffled over to make room as Zane unfolded his long limbs through the window, and sat next to him. Cole can see in his face that something is bothering him, and sat up to face him.

“Are you alright?” Cole asked, voice soft.

Zane only hesitated for a moment. “I believe I owe you an apology.” he said, as he folded his legs under him. “I - during the Day of the Departed -”

Cole shook his head to cut him off. “Look, Yang had cast like, a spell or something to make you all not notice I was gone. There was nothing you could have done about it.”

Cole had thought about this a lot. He, for a while, was angry with the rest of them for not noticing he was gone, and he had stopped talking to them - a sort of defiant test of if they would notice his absence this time. The others did, of course, and Zane had swept him up in his arms and reassured him, and Lloyd had said something very mature and leaderly, and Nya had yelled at him and dumped water on his head. It was then that he discovered the the fear of water he had gained from being a ghost had not vanished when he became human.

But the more he thought about it, the more he realized the only one he could fault was Yang. It was Yang that had made them forget, Yang that had manipulated him, Yang that had made him feel alone. He had been mad at Yang for a while, but when the guy’s kind of your roommate, you realize that he’s just old man, as lonely as a three thousand year ghost would be.

“You guys don’t have anything to apologize for.” Cole continued. “Especially not you.” He rested one hand on Zane’s knee, and Zane smiled sadly.

“Of course.” he said. “And, of course, I am still sorry.”

“I know.” Cole said.

For a moment, they sat in silence, watching the scene below. Lloyd had made Nya slip on the mud from the now-soaking field, and walk bent over laughing at her. Nya sent a thin sheet of water beneath his feet, and now he was in the mud as well, and they were both laughing hysterically.

Cole struggled with how to say exactly what he wanted to. He opened his mouth, thought better of it, and closed it again. Zane laughed at the scene below - that same beautiful sound.

“I’m sorry that it can’t be forever anymore.” Cole said before he could think better of it. “Now that I’m not a ghost. I really am, I know -”

There was a flash of recognition in Zane’s eyes, and Cole realized that he had found exactly what it was that he had looked upset about, at the start. Something Zane could have never said on his own. Something bone-deep and terrifying, the thought of dying alone.

Like Cole almost had, two floors up from here.

Zane cut him off by sweeping him up in his arms. His hands were freezing on Cole’s neck, steel and ice, and Cole leaned into him.

“Please don’t ever feel guilty about that.” he said, his voice genuine and honest. “Please. You did what you needed to do. You got your body back. You saved yourself. We still have quite a long time, assuming the world doesn’t end.”

Cole hugged him tighter. He could feel the machinery gently whirring in his chest against Cole’s own heartbeat.

“Until then,” Cole said, “I’ll stay by your side.”

Zane laughs. Cole grins his dopey grin, and presses his face into Zane’s neck, glad to no longer be incorporeal.


End file.
